


Material Witness—I'll Cover You [Set during Pandora 4 x 16 & Linchpin 4 x 17]

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Material Witness [9]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1817647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It should be <em>fun, </em>and it's not. Not exactly. His heart should race at the thought that she wants him. That she wants him, too, and doesn't want anyone else to have him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Although Pandora (4 x15) & Linchpin (4 x16) are the primary focus, there are references to Flowers for your Grave (1 x 01), Knockout (3 x 23), Rise (4 x 01), and 47 Seconds (4 x 19)
> 
> A/N: This was challenging. And long. And challenging. Pandora and Linchpin are so meaty and right smack in the good and the bad of season 4. The gift here is a little goofy (and a little bit of a cheat), but I hope you'll bear with me on it.

_2012_

He can't help thinking this should be more fun. A caper. A _spy_ caper and holding it all over Gates' head. Keeping her out of the loop—keeping everyone else out—under CIA orders. Just the two of them and a spy caper. There's nothing not fun about all that.

And then there's the fact that she's jealous. Kate is jealous. And if that's not fun—not exactly fun, anyway—he sort of needs it.

It's been hard lately. Harder. One thing after another, and it's been harder to hope. But she's jealous and that's something.

Several somethings, really. Because she's not just _jealous_. Not just jealous for herself. She's jealous for Nikki. And jealous for them. For them as partners. As a team. For all the things they mean to each other.

He thinks so anyway. He thinks she's jealous in a lot of ways.

But she's _jealous_ that's definitely part of it, and that should be fun. It's always been fun before, and it should be fun now. But it's not. Not really.

It's _good._ It's definitely good, because he needs a win for them right now. Because one day they're walking arm in arm up a church aisle and dancing cheek to cheek like it's not the end of the world, and the next, everything is crashing down around them. Four years and the lie that's keeping her safe and he needs a win to hold him steady. To make him believe that it will all come right someday.

He needs a win, because he worries that someday is something he made up. Delusion or self-preservation or whatever. Because ten words and the very sight of her were enough to undo three months of silence. Three months of making himself believe he could live without her.

And lately he's been worried that it's all in his head. Someday and everything underneath the words.

But she's jealous and it gives him a little solid ground. So it's good. Knowing she's jealous is good.

But it should be more fun than this. It should be _fun,_ and it's not. Not exactly. His heart should race at the thought that she wants him. That she wants him, too, and doesn't want anyone else to have him. That should skitter over his skin and knock the breath from him. Pull his heartbeat along, faster and faster, and it does. It _does._

But there should be sparks and banter flying back and forth between them, too. That's what's missing. Because she snipes at him and he says stupid things like usual. But she looks at him with wide, questioning eyes. She looks away and she's hurt. She's really hurt.

Part of him bristles at that. Part of him wants to call her on it. To say out loud that she's being unfair. Completely unfair. That it was a _decade_ ago and did she really think he'd never . . . researched a character before?

The pause is there, even in his head. Even in his head, they talk about it, but they don't talk about it, and it curls his fists and makes him want to shake her. Makes him want to rail against it. To tell her that she doesn't get the guided tour of his past because she's the one who decided that it's not someday yet. And wasn't she the one who didn't want to talk about numbers?

But she's hurt, and it keeps coming back to that. It keeps coming back to the fact that she's not just _that_ kind of jealous. It's something bigger than a smug smile and him taking sly digs at her. It's too big for it to be fun.

More than anything, it makes him go quiet inside. It's almost . . . solemn. Because she makes him rethink everything. His past. Their future. What he hopes for. Where he sees himself. Who he is and what he wants out of his life. How it is now and how it will be when it's time. When it's someday. She makes him rethink it all.

He hears himself tell her that with Sophia, it was never the way it is with them. He says it out loud and it's true. It's less than what he wants to say. So much less, but it's truer than a lot of things he says. A lot of things either of them is allowed to say.

And it's not just . . . appeasement. It's not a platitude or a joke about her being his work wife. It's not just the thousandth in a series of things they've said to each other because they're not in a _relationship,_ but they're in a relationship.

It's true. It's as simple as that. It was never the way it is with them. He and Sophia were never partners. And there's nothing—really _nothing—_ for Kate to be jealous of.

He can't deny the moment. Not completely. _That_ wasn't nothing. Seeing Sophia again after all this time. It wasn't nothing. But it rang out and faded and the words have all the force of realization behind them. Even though he makes a joke. Even though he lets them both off the hook with it. Even though she smiles and he's grateful. He's so grateful when he sees the hurt recede a little. It's true in so many ways: It was never like it is with her.

He wants the nostalgia. He'd like to enjoy that moment a little. It was important. That time was important. A chance to live out the kind of fantasies that made him want to write. And he'd like to get swept up in the memory now. The intrigue and the way his heart used to pound, watching Sophia work. The thrum of the command center. The urgency. Scrawling disjointed words anywhere he could because there was so much going on.

But it keeps coming back to the fact that it's true. Even though he wants to linger over memories, it's true.

He'd like to call up that thrill. He'd like the nostalgia. The option of it, at least. But all he can think is it's not the same.

It was never like it is with them.

* * *

It keeps coming down to the two of them. It's strange. The sudden weight of it when a week ago—a day ago—everything between them felt like flame and air and now it keeps coming down to them.

It's strange what's preoccupying him. What's preoccupying them both, he thinks, in the middle of one of the biggest, weirdest, most overwhelming cases they've ever worked. With everything. With Alexis and Gage and Sophia. And right now, with Jones and his fucking black bags— _again_ —it comes down to the two of them.

She's silent and still beside him. Apart from him. It's not like the first time Jones grabbed them. Not at all like the first time. She kept reaching out then. Signaling and drawing his attention. Trying to get him to remember. Relying on him. To notice the turns and sounds. The feel of the road changing underneath them. To help her build something. A picture. A sequence of events to go on when they found their opening. When they needed to make their move.

Last time, she kept reaching out. Touching him when she could manage it, with both their hands cuffed and no idea how much cover they had on opposite sides of the wide back seat, she kept touching him. And that was something else. That was down to them. Fingertips brushing his elbow and pausing. Heavy and ending in a sigh she couldn't quite silence. Relief and worry, both. Reassurance, for him and for her. And that was all down to them.

But she's still now and he doesn't have to see her to know her spine is rigid. That she's sitting tall and haughty and absolutely still. That her fingers are knotted in her lap and she's chewing the inside of her own lip. That there's a lash of anger and hurt just waiting. Just waiting.

And he wants to apologize.

It's ridiculous, and there's a stubborn push against it. Something knotted and heavy hammering at his ribs that says no. _No._ That he has nothing to apologize _for._

But he wants to. He wants to.

He wants to tell her that he shouldn't have hit the stupid panic button. That he should have known he could count on her. That he _does_ know that. He can always count on her. His partner. That there's nothing that the two of them can't get themselves out of and he knows that.

That Sophia isn't his girlfriend.

That's the thing he wants to say most, and it keeps him from saying anything at all, because it's _absurd_. Even if Jones weren't there. Even if they weren't cuffed and bagged in the back of a 100%-obvious spook mobile, it would keep him from saying anything at all.

It's _completely_ ridiculous. But he's still biting it back. The drive goes on and on. Jones is circling and doubling back and it's all more than a little over the top. It's taking forever. And even in the middle of everything, he's biting back the denial, and what are they, sixteen?

He did the right thing. The sensible, _logical_ thing. He couldn't have known what Gage had planned. He couldn't have known how things would go down. Whether he'd kill them both or knock them out or whisk them away to God knew where. He couldn't have known, and it made perfect sense to make sure someone would at least come looking for them.

And she's not his girlfriend.

He wants to say all of that, but it comes down to the two of them. To the fact that they're partners and the look on her face. Hurt and disbelief. Betrayal and the way she shrank away from him in the confines of the trunk. And it's not fair. She's not being fair, and that doesn't change a thing. He feels guilty. He wants to apologize for losing faith.

He wants to reach out. To lay his fingertips on her and make them heavy with an apology, because that's all he can manage with his hands cuffed and the wide back seat between them.

Because it all comes down to the two of them, and he wants to reassure her. He wants to tell her that it always will.

It always will.

* * *

He wants to be angry, but he can't quite come up with it. If he tries—really tries—he can get to indignant, but that's about it. At best, he's . . . angry that he can't be angry. And it's familiar. Dizzying and typical of so much of the last four years and even _that_ realization doesn't quite get him to angry.

He stares down at the chess board. Knocks the bishop over for effect—for the satisfaction of the sharp clack and the helpless roll of it back and forth—but it's play acting. He's not angry.

He sweeps the chess board aside anyway. Even though he knows it's a pointless gesture and a lie, he sweeps it aside and the remaining pieces topple. The other bishop and the pawn teeter and fall and list from side to side.

He trails a hand down one side of the desk, counting under his breath until he finds the drawer and slides it open. It's mostly empty. Three or four stationery pads scavenged from hotels. A scattering of binder clips. An old, half-eaten package of fruit leather, for some reason. _Ew._

He slides it all aside and finds the seam in the bottom of the drawer. His fingers press down and meet resistance. A hidden spring. It takes him a second to remember the sequence—the combination—and he wonders how long it's been.

_Eleven and a half years._ That came readily enough today, and he tamps down a flare of embarrassment. Guilt at how eager he sounded. Like he's been counting every day, and no wonder. No wonder she's worried. No wonder she's hurt.

He shoves the thought away. He's done with that. He's done with the guilt and the questions she won't quite ask. He's done putting himself out there while she takes her shots. _The way you look at her, you're sure as hell aren't on mine._

If she's worried, that's on her. If she doubts him—doubts that he's been anything but on her team for four years—that's on her. He's been there. When she's wanted him there and when she hasn't and when she hasn't been able to make up her damned mind, he's been there, and if she can't see that—if she _won't_ see that . . .

She's the one who won't take what he's offering. What he's held out to her again and again. The one who has them talking in circles about partners and research and muses and teams when he loves her. He just loves her and he's so tired of talking in code. He's so tired of not saying it. He's _tired_ and he wants to be angry about it. And if he can't be angry, he'll be done with it. He's done.

His fingers find the seam again. He presses down and releases, counting it out. A pause, and he presses again, then one final push and hold. The panel releases and there's something. A little of the thrill he's been missing and he snatches at it. Reels it in and tries to keep it. Tries to push away the reality of her voice cracking and her eyes flashing dark with hurt as his fingers skate over the contents of the hidden compartment.

There's a laminated, clip-on badge he wasn't supposed to take. No name, just a number and a dense square of ink—a QR code, he realizes now, though he'd never even heard of one back then. A couple of sheets of what looks like plain paper, every one with a digital watermark. He wasn't supposed to take those either.

He lifts them out one by one—his little hoard of contraband—until it's the only thing left. His notebook. He lays his hand over the black matte cover and pictures the contents. Pages crowded with his handwriting. Ink and pencil led. Crayon on a few pages, he remembers, pilfered from a kids' menu in some diner in a fit of sudden inspiration.

He pictures the sketches and the shorthand. The thick, black bands of impenetrable ink and fringes of torn-out pages, all courtesy of the humorless, heavy-handed censor who met him coming and going every day. A silent, thin-lipped man whose name he never knew. Whose face he can't remember. Which, he supposes, was the point.

He remembers the missing pieces, though. That's the irony. The squeal of the marker on the page, the adamant jerk of his fingers and glue curling at the margin of the notebook's binding. Sections razored out entirely here and there. They burned every detail into his memory like nothing else.

It all seemed haphazard at the time and he remembers wondering if it was part of the game. Striking out innocuous notes on mannerisms, body language. Confiscating his crude sketches and idle snatches of mundane conversation. Heaping what mattered—what might be a security risk—together with the clutter of a busy mind. Now it seems so trivial, he wonders what mattered at all. What could have possibly mattered.

He pours a glass of scotch. Settles into the chair and savors the moment. Tells himself that he's savoring it. He makes himself wait before he reaches in and pulls the notebook out. It's no good, though. The thrill is slipping away already.

He remembers it too well, now that it's on his mind. He doesn't have open the notebook to know what he told Kate is true. That everything single thing she would let him say is true.

Most of it's like dictation. Things he took down when he hung on Sophia's every word. Just-so stories and the odd cadence of someone else's fairy tales. The stories she gave him neat and gift wrapped and hollow. Fun in the moment, and they served their purpose. Bought him more than a decade of freedom. But it's not surprising that he hasn't really thought about any of this in a long time. It's not surprising that the story left him in a rush once he stopped to think. Once he noticed.

He opens the notebook anyway. Wonders if there's really as little of him here as it seems right now. Hopes it's really not as thin as all that.

It is and it isn't. There are things pushed to the corners that he likes. Marginalia and observations framed with heavy strokes of the pen. Texture and weight and sureness hugging the edge of the page every now and then, and there's pleasure in that. The stamp of confidence in his own words, even if he had to talk himself into it then.

There are more of those as time goes on, but the pages are mostly filled with something he doesn't like much. Stick figure dialogue and mechanical plot points. Things chained together and full of empty space.

He's better than this now. He doesn't kid himself. He's not saving lives or changing the world with what he does, but he's better than this. It's time and experience, but it's more than that, too.

It's her. It's them. Whether he's angry or not. Whether she's hurt or not. He lays a hand over the page and he knows it's true: It was never like it is with her. He's better with her. Because of her.

The scotch disappears and he pours another. He keeps turning pages and ignoring the chess board at his elbow. He reads everything. Makes himself flip back when his attention wanders.

The pen is in his hand before he notices. He adds notes. Takes scissors to one page and tape to another. Draws things together uses them to flesh one another out. It's so obvious now. So obvious how things ought to fit. That there has to be a better reason for this to happen and that to come next than simple expediency. That there has to be something underneath.

He finishes the second scotch and keeps writing. He's tearing pages out now. Here and there. The things he hates. The things that are worth salvaging. He tears them out and knows in the back of the mind that he'll lose it completely about that at some point. It's not something he does. Ever.

But he tears them out. Lays them alongside fresh sheets and fills those. Clips them together and goes hunting. Other notebooks from a year ago. From three years ago. Four. The time in between when he had nothing. When everything was edges and outlines with nothing inside and he thought he was done with writing. Done with who he'd been for more than a decade.

He lays them side by side and writes on fresh pages in the middle. He realizes he was done. Looking down at the old pages and the new, he realizes he was absolutely done. It's abrupt, looking at it now. This way. There's a stark line. Before and after. He met her and he was done with who he was before.

He wasn't happy about it. Not exactly. There's resistance. Backlash and cynicism and more than his fair share of frustration. He sees pages he abandoned and came back to. Filled up and filled in after he'd left them for a dead end. Mysteries he'd never solved.

He keeps writing. Commentary and transcription and letting his mind wander. Things about the case—about Tracy's house and the Harper case file and Blakely. He writes about that from time to time and he checks in. He checks in to see, but he's still not angry. He's still just . . . whatever he is now. Whatever this is.

He writes.

He doesn't really notice the light creeping through the window. Translucent February dawn falling across the floor and not really warming anything. He doesn't notice when his head drops to his arm. When his eyes close and sleep finally comes. When the pen falls from his hand.

He doesn't notice, but he wakes suddenly. An hour later? More, probably. His spine and the awkward hunch of his shoulders tell him that. He wakes suddenly and sees it all. Nothing of the desk visible through a layer of sheets three deep—four or more in some places—taped and stapled and clipped and spreading. Spilling off the edges and stacked on either side of the chair.

He's surrounded. The notebook—the oldest one—is all but gutted, and he's surrounded.

The last sheet is damp. Sweat and drool and _ugh._ It sticks to his elbow and he glances at it as he peels it 's mostly empty. Just a couple of words—two and two alone—and he's about to toss it. His hands are poised to crumple it tight and lob it toward the garbage. But it's her name. It's her name it stops him cold.

He lays it in the center of the desk. Smooths the edges and sighs. He traces the letters with a fingertip.

_Team Beckett._

* * *

He can't get warm. It's a cliché, but he can't.

There's no time for it. There's never any time. He hands her a cup of coffee and holds on to his own and they have thirty seconds to be grateful together. Not even that. Not even thirty seconds to be grateful that they're both alive and there might be time someday. _Someday._

It's not enough. Thirty seconds and her fingers brushing his for a fraction of it when he hands her the coffee. Her thanks and his not-quite-cavalier dismissal. A joke and a shared smile. None of it is not enough. He can't get warm.

Neither can she. He sees it. How she lifts her hair off her neck even though it's dry now. Finally dry. The way she scrubs her palm over her collar bone to tease some color into the pale skin. He sees how she pulls her fingers into the too-long sleeves of the hoodie. Makes her body rigid and refuses to give into the chill. Neither of them can get warm, and he doesn't quite understand what it is they're doing about it.

He might be angry now. When he's not shivering all the way from the center of himself, he thinks he might be angry.

_She's not my partner. You are._

The thought of that being the last real thing he said to her—something so stupid and veiled and not what he wants to say _—_ might have gotten him all the way to angry at last.

And she's asking. She finally came out and asked and there wasn't any time. Just like always, there wasn't any time.

_How close were the two of you, exactly?_

And now she's asking again and he can't get warm. He faces front. Keeps himself away from her because he can't do anything else. Because she's asking and he just wants to wrap himself around her. He wants to slam his fist against the elevator's emergency stop, strip them both to the skin, and wrap himself around her.

He's tired of there not being any time. He's tired of her waiting to ask until they're in a fucking elevator so she can have the last word in a conversation they're still not having.

He's tired of it not being someday.

He can't get warm.

They have the conversation and they don't, as usual. As completely fucking typical. He puts himself in front of her in the middle of the bullpen and doesn't care that Ryan and Esposito look like they'd gladly sell tickets. She lashes out at him in the morgue in front of Lanie. She lashes out in front of his kid and tells him to go home. Her cheeks are burning. His are, too. But neither of them can get warm.

There's a spark. There's a spark between them that warms them both a little from minute to minute. Because it always comes down to the two of them. To everything they are together. Not just the things they aren't—not yet—but the job and the fact that they're partners.

There's a tight, pleased smile when he says he's with her and he smiles back because he always smiles back. Because he can't help himself. Even when he's angry. Even when she's doubting him because he slept with someone before he even knew she _existed_ , he can't help himself. He smiles back.

But it's just a spark. A tiny thing in all that darkness.

She's shivering when she turns her back on him as he's leaving. He's leaving because she told him to go. Her fingers are blue as she knots them together. She nods at Lanie's small talk and huddles further into her jacket. She's shivering.

He looks back at her from the doorway and swears he can see her breath. He swears he can see his own.

He can't get warm. Neither can she.

* * *

For once in his life, he'd like to be quiet. Given half a chance, he'd like to be quiet. He'd like every last person—every last woman in his life—to just let him be quiet.

But there's Alexis and a conversation he doesn't want to have. That he shouldn't _have_ to have because he has always kept this part of his life away from her for all kinds of reasons.

He's angry again. A flare of it in the general direction of Kate, because this is not just him spinning his own past. It's not damage control. This is his family and someone else's life and work and he's angry that she thinks the worst of him. That she assumes it's about him ducking his past and puffing himself up.

He's angry, but it sputters out into something raw and cold and closer to hopeless than he's been since he realized that she's jealous. She gave him a little solid ground and now it's buckling and rolling and gaping open beneath his feet.

He meant it in the park. He'd tell her anything. Whether it's a good idea or not. Whether he's allowed to or not.

He'd tell her anything, because he wants her to know him. She _does_ know him and he wants her to see that. To open her eyes and let herself trust that. Trust _him_. She knows him, but she doesn't want to know. She'd rather hide behind this other version of him—of them—than know. _It's really none of my business._

And then there's Sophia herself and it's just strange. There's some flare of something—satisfaction that the dressing down she gave him was a performance. Perverse, muddled gratification. Like he might as well have something to show for the grief he's getting.

But mostly he wants to be quiet. Mostly it's strange. The way she pushes and pulls like he's so easily dazzled. Like no time has passed for him at all and he hasn't lived more than a decade of his life since then. Like the same old smoke and mirrors will work.

And she thinks they do. She dictates and tries to finesse him. She brushes up against him and he's tongue tied because he can't get warm and he doesn't want her here. It hits him, startling and certain.

_It doesn't matter who she is because I'm never going to see her again_.

However he feels about her now, however he felt about her then, he doesn't want her _here._ His home. With his daughter upstairs and Kate's life on the board. He doesn't want her here, giving him orders and warnings and advice like she knows him. Like she ever knew him.

It's another echo. Her bedroom voice and strategic flashes of skin. Fleeting contact and her reaching into her bra like . . . like some dashed off femme fatale he would have written for Derrick Storm. A plot device in a pencil skirt. It should be thrilling, but it's just . . . disconcerting. It's faded and frayed around the edges and he doesn't want her here.

He just wants to be quiet.

He's tired of accounting for this version of himself. One that he shed a long time ago. He's tired of ancient sins and worn-out stories and if it's not someday, it's not back then, either.

It's here and now and he just wants to be quiet.

* * *

He sits at his desk, rocks glass and bottle at the ready, and he waits for it to come. Whatever it's going to be—guilt, sorrow, anger, humiliation, disbelief—he waits. He thinks about Sophia. His memory skips over the details. Then and now.

Nothing comes. No big emotional moment. No punctuation at the end of it. Just a desire to be busy. For his hands to be busy.

The stack of pages is still on his desk. Lopsided and weighted down with the stapler and a stray mug. He hasn't exactly had time to deal with it and there's a flare of belated panic. In his chest and his belly and his limbs.

He's sick and weak and shaking with it: It was sitting out when she was here. Sophia. Just out in the open, and she must have seen. She must have pawed through it like everything else. Like the rest of his life. Her fingers must have turned them over. Page after page. It's more than panic, then. It's disgust and fury that she touched this. Any of this.

He starts to take it all apart. Collage. Outline. Whatever it is or whatever he meant it to be. He peels tape away and pries out staples. He sets the clips aside in neat piles.

He tries to reassemble it. The original. He spreads open the nearly empty covers of the notebook and starts to piece it back together. One page. Two. Three. He sets the orphans on the other side of his desk. The burnt out shell of what he wrote when he couldn't get to angry. The holes bother him. The fragments—the old scattered thoughts that he used to think were good enough—bother him more.

He tries to reassemble it and it's worse. It's worse than looking back in the first place.

His hands work carefully at it and he watches from the outside. He feels far away from it all and he wonders what he's looking for. Why he's trying to put the notebook back together. Why he's trying to reassemble the last eleven and a half years. The year before that.

_There's no way you could have known_.

Inane, but it's the kind of thing you say. The right platitude for the right occasion. Even if the the person you're saying it to is a CIA agent. Not a CIA agent. A traitor.

She didn't say it to him. Beckett didn't. Kate didn't.

_I think that Sophia told a lot of lies._

It's generous, but honest, too. A kindness and a compliment and a demand. Not blame and not absolution. It squeezes his heart.

His hands stop. They press into the desk and stop. He wonders if he ever said it to her. _Montgomery._ That she couldn't have known. He can't remember. There wasn't any time.

He was begging her to save herself and then her heart stopped and then she was gone for so long that he can't remember. Everything happened so fast that he can't remember whether or not he opened his mouth and something so stupid came out.

_You couldn't have known._

It's not true. He's written it. He could have known. He _should_ have.

He's written it half a dozen times. Not just a plot twist. Not just the simple betrayal of a one-off character. The author's long con. Building investment and trust in someone. Shaping them into a person over time and space and feeling and taking it all away in an instant. He's written it again and again. Laid the breadcrumb trail and pulled the curtain back. Found the sweet spot between believable and completely obvious.

He's written it for her. Something kinder than the truth for Nikki. For Kate, though he told himself it wasn't. All summer he told himself it wasn't for her. That he was done writing for her. He told himself he was writing it for Roy. For himself. For the team. Something kinder they could all understand. Something to make sense where there was none.

He looks down at the desk and the ruins of something old. The answers aren't in the notebook, whether it's in one piece or a million, but he thinks they could have been. They could have been there to see. Eleven and a half years ago, she must have had her tells. Hesitations and inconsistencies and slips of the tongue.

They might have been there to see, but they're not in the notebook, whole or in pieces. That version of him—the version of he was tired of long before he knew—couldn't have known. That version of him was awed. Foolish. Overwhelmed and eager to believe. Desperate to escape into something else. That version of him couldn't have known.

He looks at the ruins. Old and new and, in between, the irregular shape of something else. Something he made when he couldn't get to angry. It's not much. A start at best.

He takes up the top sheet. Turns it this way and that and thinks it might be here. What he could have known. What a better version of him should have known. He lays the sheet aside and reaches for the next and the next. He smooths the tape down, fixing old pieces in place. He takes his pen and adds to this new something. He forgets about the notebook and eleven and a half years ago and everything he didn't know whether he should have or not.

So much of this—this thing he's making that's something else—comes from her. From Kate. The places where he's shored up plot bear her methodical, uncompromising stamp. All his shortcuts are gone and that's her, too. But it's not just things she's taught him. It's things he's learned from her, whether she meant him to or not. Whether or not she meant him to see.

The quick anger and compassion that runs so deep it's grabs him and carries him away sometimes. Stubbornness and the meticulous need to know. To make sense and understand, not just get the job done. Pain and resistance. Determination not to be defined by it anymore. That's new. New enough that it's been hard for him to trust it, but it's true on the page and it gives him hope. Everything here is true on the page.

All these things have found their way in and he can't help but hold on to them. They've found their way here and they'll keep. He knows they'll keep. That he won't have a single doubt in them if he comes back to them a year from now. A dozen years from now. Whatever happens between them or doesn't. Whether it's ever someday or not, he'll never doubt these things about her are true.

He turns the last page and remembers—realizes: This is what he was looking for. Whatever he was waiting for, this is what it all comes to. This is here and now and someday.

_Team Beckett._

* * *

He never quite finds a home for it.

He pulls the drawer open and thinks about the secret compartment, but that's wrong. He knows it right away.

He buys a bright purple accordion file because it seems right at the moment. But the pages are so thick and irregular with tape and staples and clips that it's an awkward fit and he hates the way the cardboard edges snag when he takes them out.

He does sometimes. He takes them out. Mostly to read. Mostly, but he adds here and there. Reverently moves pieces around.

At one point, he adds the covers of the old notebook—empty now—and it all rests together for a while in an oversized box on a high shelf in his closet.

The accordion file sits empty for a long time.

One day he throws the notebook covers away. He's cleaning out his desk, the last refuge of the procrastinator. He's supposed to be writing, but he's cleaning out his desk and a bunch of odds and ends from his early notes for Nikki Heat find their way into the accordion file.

There's not much. He doesn't write longhand all that often anymore, but he remembers these. Backs of envelopes and cramped handwriting so dense that there's barely any white peeking through. He remembers scrawling. Pen and paper awkwardly balanced on his thigh, hidden under the table, while he watched her. While he was supposed to be going through his own fan mail and he watched her and he had so much to say. When it felt like the words were pooling in his fingertips and surging off the tip of his tongue.

It pulls the corner of his mouth up into a smile when he thinks about it. The way she tried to freeze him out. How she would barely talk to him and he still had so much to say about her right from the beginning. He doesn't think he'll ever know her completely. But he started right away. He started knowing her right away.

And everything is true in its way. Incomplete. Unfinished, but true.

He trims the envelopes to rectangles. Adds the few ragged scraps of notepaper that he tore from the bottoms of things when she wasn't looking. He stacks it all into a neat pile and clips them together. Straightens the edges and lingers over them before he tucks them into the accordion file. He has a sudden impulse and goes hunting for his label maker. He punches out the letters. All caps. TEAM BECKETT.

He's sliding the file back up on the closet shelf and grabs the box all of a sudden. He peers inside at the stiff, black cardboard of the notebook covers. They feel like they don't belong. Like the new pages are something else entirely and the covers don't belong. He throws them away.

He gets anxious later and goes for them in the garbage, but they're buried under carrot peelings and broccoli stems and God knows what else. Alexis stands at the counter chopping vegetables and gives him an odd look.

She asks if he lost something.

He lets the lid of the garbage can clang shut and says no. He's not quite smiling, but he says no, and he's not anxious any more.

He piles the sheets up again. He puts them in their box and slides it back up next to the accordion file.

They're not quite home, but they can stay there a while.

* * *

 

[Continues in Part II. ](http://pollylynn.livejournal.com/51977.html)  



	2. Chapter 2

_2013_

He didn't do it to punish her.

Not this, anyway. Last year, when he found out that she'd known all along—that she remembered everything about that day. . . . It's hard. It's hard to sort out what was punishment and what was survival. When he couldn't make himself leave and staying hurt so badly. He doesn't want to think about those months.

But he didn't bring back Derrick Storm to punish her.

It had just made sense given how well the graphic novels were doing and he never felt done with Nikki. Even . . . even then. In the bad months when he sat up on the roof of the loft and told himself he'd feed things to the fire. The small pile of things in the purple accordion folder. Notes for the books and all the things he wrote that had nothing to do with the books. The story of how he fell in love with her and he told himself he'd feed it to the fire.

(He didn't. He never did.)

He didn't do it to punish her, but he can't sort it out, either. One past from another from now. Eleven and a half years ago. A little more than a year ago. Today and every day since someday.

Derrick Storm is taking up a lot of his time and attention these days. There are signings and events and interviews. And he has to make sure Gina and Paula don't commit him to things he wants no part of. It's taking him away from her and the work and he hates that.

He'd hate it anyway, but it's not just being away from her. It bothers him. He doesn't think he did it to punish her, but he worries. He thinks she worries, too.

But it's good in a way. Or there are good things about it. He's back to being visible. Back to page six and the reality is he needs to be there. He worried about that, too, and he knows she did. What would happen when they had another set of lies to tell. A new host of prying eyes to avoid. He knows she still worries a little, but it's like the whole world has forgotten about Nikki Heat, and he barely even has to hedge about their relationship.

Hardly anyone asks, and when they do, it's in passing. It's a stop on the way to Clara Strike. Suddenly they want to know if Nikki wasn't the first. If he created Clara in the same way and who the mystery woman behind her might be. The old answers—the answers he's always given—don't seem to satisfy.

He resents it. He's jealous for Nikki. Jealous for Kate, even though it's silly.

He hates that he can't give the answer he wants to give. The answer he gave Kate then. That Clara started with Sophia. With what Sophia wanted him to believe. But she ended up something else. Something he'd been looking for all along but didn't realize until he met her. _Kate._

It's not an answer he can give with half a dozen phones crowding in around him to record it, and he's thankful for the call from Danberg out of the blue. He laughs at the cover story, but there's silence on the other end, so he chokes it back and says thank you.

It sounds so fake. The few details are arranged just so and he wonders who'll believe it. But Danberg tells him flatly that's the cover and, sure enough, the press eats it up. He says he only recently got clearance to talk about it and they eat it up.

Kate snorts and rolls her eyes the first time she hears it. They're heading out of the precinct at the end of the day and there's a young woman he vaguely remembers. Lydia or Laura or something. She writes for a site with a handful of people covering everything. Crime and books and theater. Local interest and everything under the sun. He remembers thinking she's good. That he's liked a couple of things she's written, so he stops when she tries to catch his attention.

Kate walks a few steps on, and he worries at first that she'll go entirely. But she nods at him and lingers not too far away. Listening. She's listening. He spends a few minutes with the reporter and hopes she doesn't notice that he can't stop sneaking looks at Kate. He can't stop looking at her, even though she's rolling her eyes.

She's rolling her eyes, but there's something familiar about the way she shoves her hands in her pockets and hunches into her collar. She gives him an exasperated smile and shakes her head, at something especially ridiculous from Danberg, but she's a little lost, too. She's shivering like she can't get warm, and he knows she's thinking about it. He knows she remembers and she still wonders, because they put it away and never really talked about it.

He turns his attention back to the reporter. Laura, he thinks. She just told him, but he's already forgotten. He rushes her through her questions and feels a pang of guilt, but he wants to go. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kate shiver, and he just wants to go.

He thinks about the box on his closet shelf. The accordion file. He thinks about them and watches her. She's holding her elbows and turning her face away from the wind and he knows then. He knows he wants to give it to her. All of it. He wants her to have the story.

He wants her to know that he didn't do it to punish her.

* * *

They talk a little that night. Lying in the dark of her bedroom, she asks about Danberg and something else he's not expecting.

"When did you start?" She runs her fingernails in a long line down his side.

It's deliberate. A calculated distraction that only half works. He shivers. Catches her hand and stills it against his hip.

He thinks about it as he kisses the tip of her chin. There's a longer answer, but it's not the right one for now. He tells her the most important part. The truth. "Last year. Gary Harper and Tracy McGrath."

"Oh," she says, and if he didn't know her as well as he does, he wouldn't hear the catch in her voice. "That makes sense."

He can feel her frowning. Her shoulders tighten and she rolls away from him on to her back. She wasn't expecting him to know what she was talking about. She wanted it to be out of the blue. She wanted to catch him off guard. To talk about it and not talk about it. He anchors and arm across her waist and flips on to his stomach. He twines one foot between hers and won't let her go too far.

"Not like that," he says into her shoulder. "Not because of her."

She pulls her lip between her teeth and stares up at the ceiling while he stares up at her. He waits. Feels her ribs rising and falling under his cheek. Three breaths go by with no words. He waits. Four. He's just about to say something because he doesn't think she will and he wants her to have the story.

She tips her head down and looks him in the eye. "Not because of her?"

He shakes his head and smiles. "Not because of her."

"Ok," she says and shivers a little.

He reaches across her and tugs the comforter higher over both of them. He rubs his palm down her arm to smooth away the goosebumps.

He thinks about saying more. He wants to give her the story and he thinks maybe he should say more. But she says ok again and he believes her. She wriggles closer to and tucks her hands against his body to warm them and he believes her.

* * *

He's on a plane flipping through a _Skymall_ catalog when he finds a home for it. A home for all of it, finally. He's relieved. He's been anxious. It's time. It's long past time and he wants them to talk about this. He wants her to have the story and this is how he can give it to her.

It's a little ridiculous. More than a little ridiculous, but it's right, too.

God knows she doesn't need another coat. Neither of them needs another coat. But they're so cool and he has to have them. One for each of them. Dozens and dozens of pockets and loops and buttons and magnets and they're so _cool_.

He calls as soon as he's on the ground. They're awesome, but not exactly right. They will be, though. They'll be perfect.

He calls. He wheedles and charms and gets shuffled around. Everyone he talks to sounds surprised. They all agree. Some sooner than others, but they all agree they can do what he wants and every time, there's a surprised pause on the other end. He rushes in with thanks and asks for the next thing. It'll take a while, but he gets them to bend on that, too. He has something in mind and they have to be ready on time.

It's all squared away. It's a string of promises that all hinge on one another. A lot has to go right, but he knows it will. It has to.

It has a home. It all finally has a home.

* * *

It's late. It's _so_ late. They were supposed to be here yesterday, but there was a hold up. The call didn't come until early evening and the woman was so apologetic—so invested in his crazy little project—that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She offered to send them anyway. He could have had them and sent them back in, just for a day or so, but it's the most important part. The _best_ part.

So he said he'd wait. She promised them today. This morning, first thing. But something else came up and her assistant called, somber to the point of grief, and he _is_ laughing now. It's a little hysterical, but he's laughing, because there's something like eleven people who don't even know her, but they want this to happen almost as badly as he does. Almost.

They're here now. Finally, here, but he's hardly had any time to get things together and it's _late._

The packaging is everywhere. It was amazing, the presentation, but he needs it gone. He has his own plans. He needs it all gone and there's tissue to be pulled out of each and every pocket and there are brightly colored cloth tags sewn on loosely and hand lettered, each one explaining the function of a particular piece. Each pocket or flap or loop. He wants the tags all gone. He needs them all gone and it's so late.

He saws at the last of the tags with manicure scissors. He's vaguely aware there's some kind of sewing tool for this. He tore apart his mother's costume storage looking, but he couldn't find anything that looked likely. The tag flutters to the ground and he dashes into his office.

All this is ready at least. It's all laid out and he starts on the coat. He reaches for the handcuffs first and grins. He runs a finger over the fuzzy material—black and orange stripes—and grins. He'll pay for these. Oh, he'll _pay._

He thumbs open the magnetic flap near the belt line and loops the cuffs over the cord inside. He lets the flap snap back in place and experiments. As advertised, they're easily accessible from both inside and outside the coat. He feels the weight they add and grins.

He stows away the gadgets next: A compact flashlight that's supposed to be better for night vision. A Kennedy half dollar that breaks apart into a knife. Three or four other things that she'll try not to laugh at and then his favorite: A spy pen with a camera and voice recorder. It's a crappy pen, but how cool is that? And she's nowhere near as big a pen snob as he is anyway.

He zips the spy pen into the special pocket along the placket and turns to the rest. To the story he wants to give her. The story he's made a home for here. But he falters all of a sudden. He doesn't know where to start with it.

They're all set out. All the pages and pieces in their different shapes and sizes now. He's spent days folding them. Going on weeks at this point, he realizes. There are snug paper football shapes and complicated self-contained envelopes that should unfurl into a single sheet when she tugs just squares with satisfying heft and thin strips rolled into tight cylinders. They're all set out.

Every one has been folded and rolled and made with the pockets in mind. He has a diagram—a blueprint of it all so that she'll pull them out in the right order. The old things first. The things he cut and scrawled and clipped and stapled. Old things made new when he couldn't get to angry and he couldn't get her out of his mind. All these hollow old moments he filled up that make the story just as much hers as it is his.

And then the new things. The first glimmerings of Nikki with their wide open truth. All his wonderings and observations and the first things he loved about her. The things he loved about her so much that he had to make into something and put it out into the world.

He has a plan for it all, and he should just start stowing them away, but his hands won't work. He's worried about what's inside each one. He's worried about every word and whether any of it is good enough. He sits with the coat across his knees and he can't make himself move. It seems like forever and he can't make himself move.

He's always worried. Every time, he's pumped up with bravado and self-importance, but he's worried underneath. But this is worse. Way worse.

She doesn't really want to go. It's not the big launch party for _Storm Front,_ but it's the one that matters, and she doesn't really want to go. She's been better since the night they talked—kind of talked—but she's still quiet about the whole thing and she doesn't want to go. It's his thing, she says, and she should probably just hang back.

That's what gets his hands moving again. The ridiculous notion that anything of his isn't hers, too. That he could have done it without her.

He wants her to see. He wants her to know how much a part she is of everything he writes. Everything he does, really, but this is something he has to show for it and he wants her to know.

He tucks away the first page. Tugs the zipper closed and reaches for the next and the next and the next. His hands are moving faster now and he likes the weight of the fabric. He likes the pull and tug of the different fasteners and satisfying snick of magnets and snaps and latches. He likes the way it becomes hers in his hands. It's not something new. Not anymore. It's hers and it's where all these things belong.

He likes the weight in his hands and it comes back to him. The excitement. The feeling that this is right. That the words are right and the coat is home and this is the way he gives her the story.

He's caught up in it. So caught up in it that he doesn't hear her come in. All of a sudden she's filling the doorway of his office. She's in black. Something simple with a deep neckline and a hem that falls mid-thigh. It fits close and she is a long, elegant line, an endless curve against the upright of the bookcase. Her hair is up, just a few long waves framing her face and brushing her shoulders, and she's incredible. She's just incredible.

"Castle, you're not even _dressed_." She advances on him and he realizes that she may be incredible, but she's terrifying, too. "What the _hell_?"

He catches sight of the dial on his watch and almost falls off the desk chair. It's _so_ late. He looks up at her with wide eyes. "Kate. It's _so_ late."

Her eyes narrow and she sputters. She's incredulous enough that she can't get her words going right away and he takes advantage. He pushes up from the chair and drapes the coat over one arm. He catches her around the waist with the other and tugs her to him. She tugs back, but he has the element of surprise on his side. He kisses her on the mouth and ducks his head to drag his lips down her throat.

"You're beautiful," he murmurs. "So beautiful. And it's _so_ late. I'm so glad you're coming with me. And this is for you."

He presses the coat into her hands and backs away, grinning.

"Castle," she looks down at the dark fabric and back at him. She lifts it like she's surprised at the weight and her brow furrows. She's frustrated and still pissed and now confused joins the mix.

"I'll be quick," he calls over his shoulder as he spins through the doorway to the bedroom.

"You're _never_ quick," she snaps.

His head pops into the doorway again. "Hmm. I haven't noticed you complaining, Detective. But I _can_ be quick when the situation calls for it."

* * *

He hates every tie he owns, which is saying something. They're littering the floor of the closet and form an irregular trail to the bathroom. His hair is dripping all over them—it's dripping everywhere, actually—and at this point, even if he wanted to wear one, he's screwed. He catches sight of himself in the mirror and realizes that the shoulders of his shirt are soaked, too. _Shit._

He strips off the shirt and kicks it with the ties into the corner of the room. He'll have to bundle it all up for the dry cleaners and where the hell did the towel go? He finds it neatly draped over a hanger in the closet. He scrubs at the apparently useless thing above his shoulders and pulls on another shirt.

He tucks it into his pants once he finally has the buttons lined up and flicks through his jackets. He hates all those, too, but he needs something. Hopefully something that will work without a tie. Everything is stripes. Why does he have so many stripes?

He grabs what seems like the best option—stripes, but at least they're muted—and shrugs into it. He stuffs his feet into shoes and heads for the office, trying not to trip over the flapping laces.

"Hey, can I go without a tie in this?" he says in a rush as he steps through the doorway. "Please say yes, because they're all . . ."

He stops. She's curled in one of the arm chairs with her feet tucked up, a pair of strappy heels tipped over and forgotten on the floor. She has the coat draped over most of her lap, and there's a sea of paper spread around her. All his shapes carefully smoothed flat and laid out around her like she wants to see them all at once.

She tips her head up eagerly and smiles at him, wide and happy—so happy—and his stomach flips. She sets down the paper she's holding. One of the oversized, bulky ones, and she has to settle it just so to keep it from toppling off the arm. She reaches her hand out toward him wordlessly.

He stumbles toward her and she clears a space on the arm of the chair for him. She gathers up the pages and her brow furrows as she looks around for somewhere to put them. He reaches for them, but she holds on as if she's reluctant to let them go.

He looks down at her curiously. "Just gonna set them on the desk."

"But I can . . . I can have them back?" she shoots him a warning look as her voice catches. Like she's daring him to bring it up.

"Of course," he says as he takes them from her. She can't keep her eyes form following as he sets them down. Then he realizes. Then he gets it. "They're yours, Kate."

Her eyes go so wide that he only just catches himself before a laugh sneaks out.

"Oh," she says finally. "Oh." She reaches her hand out again and tugs him down on to the arm of the chair.

He balances himself on one hip and reaches behind her to prop a fist on the opposite arm. He leans down to kiss the top of her spine. He presses his lips against her skin to keep quiet. He wants to say something. He wants to ask. If she likes it. If she sees. If she understands that she makes him better and he can't do this without her.

But her fingers are eager at the pockets and flaps and she's smiling and tossing comments over her shoulder to him. And then she's quiet and nibbling on her lip and thoughtful. He runs his hand up and down her back and lets her read.

She whips her head around all of a sudden. "Are these spoilers? Are you spoiling me?"

"No!" he says quickly, then thinks about it. "Not . . . I don't think so. They're not even outline stuff. And . . . " He can't help adding it. She'll make him pay, but he can't help it. "You could have read the advance copy."

"Never again." Her head swivels away from him. "I don't trust you, Mr. Castle."

"I changed _one_ minor detail," he protests.

"Minor!" She snorts. "You had Petar in a location that would have made it impossible for him to . . ."

He leans in quickly and silences her with a kiss. "An oversight—a _minor_ oversight—caught by my brilliant partner that I was able to fix before it went to the final print."

She twists away from him. Her eyes are sparkling and she's more than ready to string the argument out, but she stops when she sees the look on his face. His head is tipped down and his fingers are worrying at the buttonhole on his jacket. She lays a hand gently on his knee and his eyes come up to meet hers.

"Can't do it without you, Kate. Nikki. Derrick Storm. Any of it. I . . ." He pauses, at a rare loss for words. "I'm better at this now . . . ever since I met you . . . I'm better. And I'm glad you're coming with me tonight."

She raises up a little on her knees. She hooks one arm around his neck. The page in her hand crinkles against his shoulder, but she pulls him in for a long kiss anyway.

"I'm glad, too," she murmurs as she pulls away. "But we're going to be so late."

He chases after her. Plucks the page from her hand and leans over her to set it on the floor as his lips seek the bare skin of her shoulder. "Guests of honor. They'll wait."

"Castle!" She laughs and turns her head away, but she has a hold of his jacket with both hands and she's tugging him closer.

"Can we really be late?" she asks in a low voice.

He swallows hard and nods. "We can definitely be late."

"Good," she breathes against his cheek. "Then I can finish reading."

She shoves him firmly enough that he loses his balance and slides off the arm. He manages to catch himself before he actually hits the floor and control his fall. His head pops up, and he has every intention of going after her again, but she's playing with one of the inside pockets, snicking and unsnicking the flap.

"Magnets," she says with a grin. "I love the magnets."

He sighs. There's no defense against her when she's cute. There's no defense against her, _period_ , but especially not when she's cute. He scoots around to the front of the chair and leans his back against it. She slides her fingers into his hair and he tips his head against her knee.

Her hand idly strokes his head. It's awkward, pulling the stiff little shapes out and unfolding them with only one hand, but they both seem to want the contact. She lets out soft laughs and disbelieving snorts and the occasional question. He answers and takes the pages from her as she finishes, making a careful pile.

She's . . . thrilled with it. There's no other word. Her voice is low and excited and her breath catches every so often. She's thrilled and he's quiet. Solemn and quiet and so glad that it means something to her like it does to him.

But she's nearly to the end. It's the last of the old things and he finds his heart is pounding. He thinks about those early days. What an ass he was. How badly he wanted her. Like he could have her and it would burn him up. Burn her out of him and he'd be over her. He'd stop wanting more. From her. From himself and the book and his life. He turns his head and presses a kiss to the bare skin just below the hem of her dress.

"Castle." She tugs at his hair a little irritably, but he looks up at her and her fingers relax. "You ok?"

He nods, but she's not convinced.

"Do we need to go? I can . . ." She trails off and runs a regretful hand over the coat.

"No." He grabs for her fingertips and kisses them. He nudges her hand back toward the coat. "No, go ahead."

She smoothes a palm down his cheek and gives him a long look. He nods again and she believes him this time. She works open the next pocket. It's long and narrow with a top flap and she pulls out a thin cylinder.

She flattens it along her thigh and peers down at it. "This is . . . there's so much. I can hardly read . . ." She breaks off suddenly and looks at him. He's watching her, but doesn't seem inclined to say anything. Her eyes travel back to the paper. She takes it delicately between her fingertips and moves it into the light and reads the first line. "Justice. You can hear the capital letter every time she says it."

She looks down at him and he's grinning now. She wants to flick his ear. She wants to kiss him. She wants to hide. A blush creeps over her. Her cheeks and collar bones are bright and warm with it.

She shifts uncomfortably and he lays a heavy hand on her thigh. He tips his head back and wraps his fingers around her wrist. He pulls her hand toward him and kisses her palm. "Still can. Every time."

"Castle, I . . . this . . ." She holds the paper out to him.

He takes it from her and catches her hand again. He sets the paper aside. Starts another pile and takes her hand in both her own. "There's a lot. You don't have to read it now. But I wanted you to know. Last year . . ." He thinks about it. "Still. I still want you to know that it's never been like it is with us. For me . . ."

He trails off, frustrated with his own stumbling words. She slips from the chair to the floor. Swings her knees over his thighs and presses close to his side. She still has the coat clutched in her hand and the skirt of it spreads over both of them.

He wraps his arm around her and gives her a grateful squeeze. "It's never been like this with anyone. Right from the start."

She's quiet, but she presses closer to him and it's better than words.

He doesn't want to move. He wants to stay like this with her. He wants to watch her read every word and tell her what it was like, knowing her. Falling in love with her. But there's time. He knows there's time and they really ought to go.

"I love your books." She says it quietly. Just as he's about to turn to her, and his mouth snaps shut. "For a long time. Since my mom died. I could count on them. I knew I could get the newest one or reread the ones I already had and I could just . . . escape for a while. They made me think and let me get out of my own head and I've loved them for a long time."

She goes quiet again and he doesn't know what to do. He wants to crush her against him and fall at her feet and drag her off to the bedroom. He doesn't know what to do, so he kisses her forehead and whispers, "Thank you. Thank you for telling me."

She tilts her chin up and kisses the corner of his mouth. "Don't be a jerk about it, ok?"

He laughs and wraps his other arm around her. "I'll try."

She pulls her knees up and slips the coat off their laps. She folds it in half and smooths a hand over the fabric. "We should probably go."

"Probably," he agrees. "You can read the rest later. Or whenever you want."

"Later," she agrees. "Together."

He nods and tries to not to grin like an idiot. "But you have to see the best part first!"

"You mean I haven't seen that already?" Her hands are a blur and all of a sudden she's dangling the open cuffs in front of his nose. They're close enough that the cheap fake fur tickles and he has to stifle a sneeze.

"No! No . . . those . . ." He scrambles backward, but she drops to her hands and knees and crawls after him and that's hardly fair. "Those are a _highlight_ , but not . . . not the best part."

He yelps as her hand closes around his ankle and she pulls herself toward him. She's flipping one cuff through itself. Circling the hinge and the ratcheting noise is the worst combination of a threat and a promise.

"Beckett!" he whimpers. "Beckett! I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, but . . ."

She gives him a hard look and flips the cuffs in her hand, overlapping the bracelets and setting them aside. "I know. We have to go. But there's going to be a conversation about the fun fur."

"Definitely," he gulps. He's relieved. He's disappointed. He thinks about calling in a bomb threat to the party venue. "A conversation."

She rocks back on to her heels and it really should defuse the tension, but it doesn't. Her skirt pulls taut over her thighs and that neckline is fantastic and a bomb threat still sounds reasonable. She folds her arms over her chest and that's not helping. "So what's the 'best thing'."

It's too good a set up. He skitters back over to her and slides his hands over her shoulders. He kisses her. "You are. You're the best thing."

"Sap!" She rolls her eyes and pushes him away, but her eyes are shining and she's smiling wide.

"Yes. I am a sap." He lets her go and pushes himself to his feet. "Wait right here."

He dashes through the living room and wrestles the box from the front hall closet. They arrived so late and he needed to get hers together, so he's hardly had time to look at his own. He tears off the plastic as he rushes back into the office.

She sees the coat and holds up a hand. "Tell me they don't match."

He looks from the coat to her. "No. Well, yes, but no. I mean . . . . all the pockets and stuff, yeah, because they're _so cool_. But this is the 'Expedition' and yours is a trench coat because . . ." He gives her a heated look. "Trench coat. But they're not, like uniforms . . . well they kind of are, but they don't _match._ And it's the best part!"

She's laughing as he drops back to the floor next to her and nudges her attention toward the coat lying next to her. He spreads his own across his lap, front down, and watches as she does the same. He runs his finger along an almost invisible seam just below the shoulders. Her finger follows the same path on her own and she looks up at him, surprised.

"Magnets," he says, waggling his eyebrows. "On three?"

She presses her lips together. He can tell she wants to roll her eyes, but she's indulging him and he really, really wants to call in that bomb threat.

"One . . ." He nods to her

"Two . . ." She replies. She does roll her eyes, then. She's only human.

"Three!"

They tug in unison. A large square of fabric comes free and doubles back. Another strip of magnets catches the weight of the first and the flap seals neatly to the back of each coat, exposing a stretch of embroidery underneath. Silvery thread that reflects the low light. Familiar fat, blocky letters: TEAM BECKETT.


End file.
